Seven arrests made during Israel-Premier Tech team Grand Prix protest
Protesters accused the cycling team of sportswashing and being complicit in genocide
On Sept. 14, hundreds of protesters gathered at the Sir George-Étienne Cartier monument to protest Israel’s Premier Tech cycling team’s participation in the Montreal Grand Prix.
Police presence was heavy during the protest, with officers surrounding the protesters on foot, bicycles and horseback.
According to the SPVM, seven arrests were made for assaulting or obstructing police, and four cases of mischief were filed with no arrests.
Protesters waved Palestinian flags, chanted and beat drums as cyclists passed along the course.
The demonstration was organized by Bikers for Palestine, Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU), and Divest for Palestine in an effort to protest against Israel-Premier Tech’s sponsorship of Israeli cyclists. The company is co-owned by Canadian-Israeli billionaire Sylvan Adams.
What and who is Israel-Premier Tech and Sylvan Adams?
Israel-Premier Tech is a cycling academy founded by Israeli businessman Ron Baron and former Israeli rider Ran Margaliot, and co-owned by Adams.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently praised Adams for refusing to withdraw his team from sporting events despite protests from opponents.
Adams and Netanyahu have known each other since at least 2018, when they rode bikes together in a promotional video for Israel-Premier Tech. Adams is also the president of the Israel region of the World Jewish Congress, and is referred to by that organization as being “committed to promoting Israel’s global image.”
According to PAJU member Shadi Marouf, Montreal's allowing the Israeli team to participate, despite calls from activists, is a political decision.
“By the city allowing [Israel to participate], they are normalizing genocide and separating the state from their proxies and saying, ‘Well, this one is not really genocide, it's sports,’” Marouf said. “But it is connected.”
Marouf believes that the city needs to listen to its people.
“The city is on the wrong side of history. We know for a fact that two-thirds of Canadians support and recognize that what's happening is genocide,” he said. “If the majority of the population is at consensus, then the city and the politicians need to start listening to the people.”
Lilah Woods, a member of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network and demonstrator, believes that protesting against Israel’s participation is important. She adds that people need to fight for “human rights, to protest against our city’s complicity in genocide and sportswashing and apartheid.”
“People will say that [cycling] is a non-political thing, that this is only a sport, but that is nonsense,” Woods said. “Israel-Premier Tech is [...] using the streets of Montreal to sportswash Israel: the apartheid state, the settler colony.”
Palestinian paracyclists and their story
While demonstrators were chanting and waving flags, Bill Van Driel, a spokesperson from Bikers for Palestine, told the story of two Palestinian paracyclists and cousins, Alaa al-Dali and Ahmed al-Dali.
In 2018, Israeli soldiers shot Alaa al-Dali, a professional able-bodied cyclist at the time, in the leg during a protest called “The Great March of Return.” Soon after his recovery, Alaa al-Dali became a paracyclist and founded the Gaza Sunbirds paracycling team.
Ahmed al-Dali, Alaa’s cousin and member of the Gaza Sunbirds, lost his leg in 2014 due to an Israeli airstrike. He was wrongfully pronounced dead and placed in a morgue before his body was reassessed, and his family discovered he was still alive. In May 2025, he was killed by Israeli airstrikes.
“It’s not easy for anybody in the world to compete, but I want the athletes here today to reflect on if any of them have ever been blocked from competing by a brutal military occupation,” Bill said. “For the Sunbirds, even simple things like training mean being followed by drones.”
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